`It all seems rather excessive — just to keep Sara Keays out.' W ith renewed inflation causing con- cern, Mr Lawson said he would keep interest rates high, and exhorted...

ONE OF the great pleasures of The Spectator's offices in Bloomsbury is the vista southwards down Doughty Street ending in a prospect of green. For here is the garden of Gray's...

1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 THE DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT M rs Thatcher's recent speeches in Europe have restated an authoritative Conservative view of Europe. There have been...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY Save 15% on the Cover Price! RATES 12 Months 6 Months UK 0 £49.50 1:1 £26.00 Europe (airmail) 0 £60.50 0 £31.00 USA Airspeed 0 US $99 0 US$50 Rest of...

The Tory Party succumbs to one of its periodical fits of morality NOEL MALCOLM onference-going can be a wearisome business, especially when you have to go to all of them. It...

CHARLES MOORE W hy is there a three-mile air exclu- sion zone at Brighton? Why are there defences and patrols against a sea-borne landing? Nowhere else that ministers col-...

The dread consequences of Mrs Thatcher's wanting to be loved AU BERO N WAUGH A ll this week I have been dreading Friday, when Mrs Thatcher unfolds her `vision' of Leading...

Dominic Lawson investigates the links between N. M. Rothschild and 10 Downing Street ON THE day that Mrs Thatcher was elected leader of the Conservative Party she had lunch at...

Richard Bassett witnesses the effects of Mr Milosevic's nationalist agitation Montenegro THE mob is alwayS unpleasant. In Serbia it is particularly disagreeable. So it was...

Gerda Cohen meets Palestinians who are uninterested in the Israeli elections Jerusalem DOG TURDS, flies, emaciated cats root- ling about in the dustbins, and the exqui- site,...

A. J. Ayer 'died' for four minutes but has second thoughts about what that meant MY purpose in writing a postscript to the article about my 'death', which I contri- buted to...

.. or almost £30 on The Spectator If you're forced to share The Spectator with fellow students, then you'll know how difficult it can be to track a copy down. Now you can save...

Kingsley Amis updates his glossary of customer abuse ABOUT THIS GUIDE: Introducing my 1985 catalogue (The Spectator, 19 October 1985), I wrote: "Sod the public" is the working...

'[Following last year's storm] insurance companies have already paid out more than £1.8 million, with 10 per cent of claims still not settled. Since more than a third of...

Michael Trend questions the quality and usefulness of teacher training WHO will teach the teachers? For some years now many on the Left of British politics have realised what...

Richard Munday argues that government firearms controls smack of national socialism LET us have done with the pretence that we live under a 'Conservative' govern- ment. Its...

NOTHING whatever has been disco- vered during the week to throw light upon the Whitechapel murders. The police entertain the belief, as we gather from the remarks of Mr....

Outsiders: a profile of David Hart, the man who loves 'the lady' This is the third in a new series of profiles. `I AM an eagle over England at last. In my highest flight. I...

Timothy Garton Ash writes: THIS seems like a good moment to put forward an idea with which Mr Spectator has been toying for some time. The idea is that readers should take out...

for a change, some first-class public service broadcasting JOURNALISTS who do the political rounds cast a critical eye over Blackpool, which they are obliged to visit once a...

I SUPPOSE we can be grateful that, a year afterwards, the question is still in dispute. The investigations, in London and (under Nicholas Brady, now secretary of the US...

NOW comes the recognition that a threat to the securities markets endangers the whole financial system, just as a threat to the banks does. For the banks we now have agreement...

THREE messages from a falling market come by way of Andreas Whittam Smith, sometimes share-picker of these columns under the name of John Bull. He was cross-questioned, in the...

The Eeyore Tendency settles down to mark an unhappy birthday CHRISTOPHER F I LDES A ll we have to do now is to get through to next Wednesday. That will be quite an...

Sir: As one who has been associated with the Oxford Group and Moral Re- Armament since 1932, I am sad to throw doubt on Hilda Martin's charming explana- tion (Letters, 3...

Sir: I recall, when living in Italy, being told by someone who claimed to be there on the yacht, in Capri, at the time of the occasion when Betsy Drake (once spouse of Cary...

Sir: Following along on Christopher Fil- des's line of thought on students throwing eggs at bankers (City and Suburban, 8 October) would he feel that the banker was not...

Sir: Senior partner Mr G.H. Coates of British clam designers Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners reacted sharply (Letters, 27 August) to columnist Rowlinson Carter's report (Diary,...

Sir: I read Alexandra Artley's article in The Spectator (1 October) with great in- terest, but I feel most strongly that she has not presented an informed, valid or up-to- date...

Sir: How timely of Mr Johnson to lecture us about printing errors (The press, 1 October). Sadly, these days no journal however prestigious is immune. In my article of the same...

Sir: A little while ago Mr Auberon Waugh (Another voice, 10 September) took me to task for writing an article in the Daily Mail suggesting that until such time as there was a...

Behind the masks William. Deedes MACMILLAN 1894-1956: VOLUME I by Alistair Horne Macmillan, .06.95, pp. 502 yen those who were close to Harold Macmillan found him a difficult...

`At seventy it's no disgrace to forget a name', she smiled: Hers, to my dismay, had vanished without trace. The Albertine rose she was holding out towards me Seemed to reflect...

J. Enoch Powell UPWARDLY MOBILE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Norman Tebbit Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £14.95, pp.280 I hope those who have the opportunity to get hold of Norman Tebbit's...

Christopher Booker PEOPLE AND PLACES: A SELECTION 1975-87 bil ) . J. Kavanagh Canattet, £12.95, pp.2 72 0 Ile morning last spring I set off with my family to see the Severn...

Fiction: The New Confessions by William Boyd, Penguin, £3.99 I Want It Now by Kingsley Amis, Penguin, £2.95 The Return of Hyman Kaplan by Leo Rosten, Penguin, £3.99 The House...

Michael Horovitz DAYS IN THE LIFE: VOICES FROM THE ENGLISH UNDERGROUND 1961-1971 edited by Jonathon Green Heinemann, f14.95, pp.468 T his is the first publication I've seen...

Dervla Murphy IN TROUBLE AGAIN: A JOURNEY BETWEEN THE ORINOCO AND THE AMAZON by Redmond O'Hanlon Hamish Hamilton, £14.95, pp.272 A nyone deranged enough to accom- pany...

Slow, bandaged hammer-beat of drum is tolled, Three booming spondees; pause, and then three more. Then rattling side-drums chatter out their din Machine-gun rapid as the pipes...

Eric Christiansen BOADICEA'S CHARIOT: THE WARRIOR QUEENS by Antonia Fraser Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £14.95, pp. 383 E veryone knows about Boadicea', claims the authoress....

Anita Brookner THE HIGH ROAD by Edna O'Brien Weidenfeld & Nicolson, L10.95, pp.180 E dna O'Brien's new novel is best read as a gloss on her earlier work. All the familiar...

Cinema Eisenstein 1898-1948: His Life and Work (Hayward, till 11 December) Sergei goes to Hollywood Adrian Dannatt lies on a maggoty carcase, svelte shoppers fingering furs:...

The bear in spring Giles Auty W e are told we have this thing called freedom now, but nobody knows what it is.' These words, spoken by an established Russian painter, are the...

concise and handsomely bound in soft, navy blue leather, it offers all the facts, figures and numbers that are absolutely essential,. Listings of top wine merchants by Auberon...

Randy's return Marcus Berkmann Y ou can tell that things are beginning to hot up in the record business. When I returned from my holiday in France last week, there were 57...

Gavin Jones (St Anne's, Limehouse, till 23 October) Only half-modern Alistair Hicks N ot every young painter is given a Hawksmoor interior to decorate. Gavin Jones has seized...

Griller thriller Ursula Buchan A s the leaves begin to turn colour, the apples ripen and the grass is dewy in the chilly mornings, the thoughts of every conscientious...

The arts go pop Wendy Cope C ould I face watching an hour-long programme on Dylan Thomas? This was the question on Sunday night. Still unsure at 10.30 p.m., I switched on The...

Telling it like it is Taki Athens ack in the bad old days of 1984, while waiting my turn to pay my debt to café society, a friend from America sent me Jay McInerney's novel...

Curse of the sausage roll Jeffrey Bernard I bought a woman a drink yesterday. Ten minutes later I bought her another one. A further ten minutes after that she bought herself...

Designs on the young Alice Thomas Ellis I wonder what this means: 'The Owner will at the request and expense of the Purchaser execute all such further instru- ments as the...

IN his book review under the heading 'It Takes Two to Tell the Truth' in the issue of 28 May, Charles Glass wrote that Christ- opher Hitchens had received 'no reply' to a...

880: Sausages & mash by Mascot A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £13.95 — ring the words...

False alarm Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1544 you were asked for an imaginary newspaper medical scare, complete with loony 'scientific facts'. Over a hundred of you had me...

Pub club Raymond Keene A n important recent event which I have not yet covered was the National Westminster Bank Young Masters Tourna- ment, organised by the enthusiasts of...

Imperative cooking: filling G iiistkw. jet. jett avin's gap GAVIN is 24, the product of a minor public school and a provincial university. He is now doing well in insurance....

2g 3 MEDDLET I DERINID It P I GONS 3 tUGCACE OUAIEIT 11 0 I L 3 6 RC IN RFNOWLEGGEABLE T EHE 3 bE 3 HIT Thematic components: Gum (16, 29D, 34, corn- pounds); UP (9, 18, 40,...

You are invited to write some English hexameters (maximum 16 lines) beginning with the words 'I am in love, mean- time. . (words with which Clough, one of the few poets who...